trendpreneur

The afternoon kicks off with a talk about data and customer understanding from Beyond Analysis. The entire afternoon’s talks are behind the jump – usual disclaimer, these are unedited notes, etc.

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This article on talking to your target customers has floated across my radar multiple times in the last few days, so it’s only fair I blog it here.

The general premise is that it’s easy to find people to talk to about your product. By offering rewards and collecting basic information, you can get a whole load of people who are actually quite keen to speak to you, and filter them for relevance.

I especially like the concept from the point of view of firing out a survey and some AdWords links, and ending up with in-depth conversations about your product, possibly even lasting relationships. The potential customers will be in your debt thanks to the gift certificate, and presumably very open to early-bird offers when you launch the product.

Obviously people could game the system somewhat, aiming for the $20 gift voucher and telling you what they think you want to hear, but careful filtering and good questioning should hopefully stop this from happening. Good stuff.

As a World of Warcraft player, I find it quite interesting watching the player response to various moves by the publisher Blizzard. For an upcoming expansion, selected players were invited to participate in the beta — effectively testing Blizzard’s product for free. However, players treated it as a right, rather than a privilege, and it’s resulted in a fairly disgruntled customer base.

First of all, customers were annoyed they didn’t get invited. Then they did, and the product was unfinished, so they complained about that. Due to it being a test phase, there’s only one server, which is understandably unreliable — causing yet more player outrage. Then those who have been privileged enough to test this product without getting paid (of course, they get to see all the content before it’s released, so they do gain) start moaning about newer players slowing down the servers even more.

The moral of the story? If you’re giving away something for free, someone will be unhappy that it’s the wrong colour.